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Video Terms
3:2 Pulldown - The conversion of film frame rate material (24 fps) to NTSC
video (29.97 fps) which results in the addition of approximately six frames per
second. Pulldown frames are created by blending frames from the original
source in a specific pattern.
4:1:1 Color - Moderately compressed video color subsampling in which
the luminance channel is not subsampled, but the chrominance
channel has one quarter the resolution. Standard color space for DV.
4:2:0 Color - Moderately compressed video color subsampling that is very
similar to 4:1:1. Color space used by MPEG.
4:2:2 Color - Mildly compressed video color subsampling in which the
luminance channel is not subsampled, but the chrominance channel has half
the resolution. Often used in professional editing.
4:4:4 Color - Uncompressed video color which has no subsampling.
Chrominance - The color component of an image.
Codec - A codec is a compression/decompression software component which
translates video or audio between its uncompressed form and the compressed
form in which it is stored.
Data Rate - Theamount of information per second used to represent a movie,
often expressed in KBps (KiloByte/ sec). A single speed CD-ROM movie is
usually made at a data rate of 100 KBps, and a double speed CD-ROM movie
about 200 KBps. The data rate of uncompressed NTSC video is about 27
Megabytes per second.
Deinterlace - The removal of the interlacing artifacts caused by the twofields-per-frame nature of video.
Edge Blanking - The black part of the video signal that normally falls outside
the area that shows on a TV screen. Most capture cards include some amount
of edge blanking around the captured image. Commonly referred to as "edge
noise" or "overscan".
Field - Half of an interlaced video frame consisting of the odd or the even
image lines. Alternating video fields are drawn every 1/60th of a second in
NTSC video to create the perceived 30 frames per second video.
FPS - Frames per second, a measure of the frame rate of video or film. NTSC
video is 29.97 fps, PAL and SECAM video is 25 fps, and film is 24 fps.
kiloByte (kB)- Is a unit of measure for computer data. A kiloByte (with lower
case "k" and captial "B") is 1000 Bytes. This unit is rarely used.
kHz - Means kiloHertz, a unit of measure for audio sample frequency.
NTSC - The National Television Standards Committee. The NTSC defines North
American broadcast standards. The term "NTSC video" refers to the video
standard defined by the committee, which has a specifically limited color

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gamut, is interlaced, and is approximately 720x480 pixels, 29.97 fps.

PAL - Phase Alternating Line. The 25 fps video format used by many European
countries.
RGB - Red Green Blue. A color space commonly used on computers. Each
color is described by the strength of its red, green, and blue components. This
color space directly translates to the red, green, and blue phosphors used in
computer monitors. The RGB color space has a very large gamut, meaning it
can reproduce a very wide range of colors.
SECAM - A video standard very similar to PAL which is used in a limited
number of countries.
Suffix - The last part of a file name that indicates the type of file. The
common online video suffixes are:
QuickTime .mov
RealVideo .rm
RealVideo metafile .ram
Windows Media .asf
Video for Windows .avi
MPEG Layer-3 Audio .mp3
MPEG .mpg
YUV- A color model which describes color information in terms of luminance
(Y) and two chrominance channels (U,V). The YUV space is commonly used in
video, and easily supports color subsampling.
YUV9 - A color format with substantial subsampling often used with online
video technologies. For every 16 luminance "Y" samples in a 4x4 pixel block,
there is only one "U" and one "V" sample. This dramatic color subsampling
produces smaller files, with correspondingly lower color fidelity. YUV9
subsampling often results in noticeable color artifacts around the edges of
brightly colored objects.

Following are common image sizes that have nonsquare pixels

IMAGE SIZE
720
720
720
720
720
720
1440
1440
2880
2880

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

480
480
486
486
576
576
1024
1024
2048
2048

FORMAT
DV NTSC
DV NTSC Widescreen
D1 (ITU-R 601) NTSC
D1 NTSC Widescreen
D1/DV PAL
D1/DV PAL Widescreen
D4
D 4 Anamorphic
D 16
D 16 Anamorphic

IMAGE
PIXAL ASPECT
ASPECT
4:3
0.9
16.9
1.2
4:3
0.9
16:9
1.2
4:3
1.0666
16.9
1.4222
4:3
0.9481481
8:3
1.8
4:3
0.9481481
8:3
1.8

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varies

Anamorphic Film

2.1

2.0

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